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cat full of bird and mouse bones !!!

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  • 24-03-2010 7:18pm
    #1
    Chicken Run
    Registered Users Posts: 594 ✭✭✭


    just taken our year-old cat to the vets as he kept vomiting, they've X-rayed him and his intestines are bunged up with small bones...bird/rat/mouse/shrew.

    Vet will try an enema and laxatives to remove them before the surgery option, but when he comes home, how do we stop him from eating them ??

    He lives in the outbuildings (has his own sofa and everything) and is perfectly happy out there (goes loo-lah when you bring him in the house)

    We found him as a stray as a tiny kitten and thought we'd keep him to keep the mouse population down in the sheds, but he's clearly too good a predator.

    Anyone any ideas ?? Collar with a bell ?? I've heard mixed opinions on these as he has free run of a lot of woodland and would hate him to get it caught on anything... I don't want to keep him shut in - he'd go crazy :(


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    #2
    Sigma Force
    Registered Users Posts: 5,132 ✭✭✭Sigma Force


    There's a release collar you can get for cats so if the cat gets stuck on anything it should come off. Although check the collar regularly.

    Here's the link to a site that sells them https://www.premier.com/store/Products.aspx?cid=1&pid=12

    Adding a bell can help rodents and birds have great hearing so a little tinkle of a bell should work.
    Might help save some of the wild birds in the area.


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    #3
    Chicken Run
    Registered Users Posts: 594 ✭✭✭Chicken Run


    Guineapigrescue wrote: »
    There's a release collar you can get for cats so if the cat gets stuck on anything it should come off. Although check the collar regularly.

    Here's the link to a site that sells them https://www.premier.com/store/Products.aspx?cid=1&pid=12

    Adding a bell can help rodents and birds have great hearing so a little tinkle of a bell should work.
    Might help save some of the wild birds in the area.

    thanks - will check that out.
    I think he's catching them in the polytunnel - the door's a bit gappy so he and the birds can get in, then he grabs them when they panic. OH going to sort out the door at the weekend.
    Also he has a lockable catflap into the outbuilding - do you reckon keeping it shut overnight would help ? I suspect he catches most of them at dawn when they're hungry and vulnerable.
    Our bird feeders are on a shiny metal pole that he can't climb, so it's not that we're not trying....


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    #4
    Sigma Force
    Registered Users Posts: 5,132 ✭✭✭Sigma Force


    Shutting him in at night could help, birds perch up and most can't see well in the dark so that's probably when cats tend to catch them easily.

    Shutting him in before dusk letting him out once there's good light could help, worth trying. If he's in a barn area there's bound to be the odd mouse to catch there anyway.

    My parents have a similar problem, they feed the birds but it's when the babies fledge over the summer is when one of their cats catches a lot of them. The babies can be so clumsy and easily caught throughout the day that perhaps that's where the bell might work.


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    #5
    doubtfir3
    Registered Users Posts: 338 ✭✭doubtfir3


    Another suggestion would be for you to get another 1-2 cats? Both to act as company for your existing guy but also that they would present competition for the mice etc around the place..

    You should in theory see that he gets to catch/eat less of them but also that they may move on since there is such a good cat patrol around the place!

    :)


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    #6
    Chicken Run
    Registered Users Posts: 594 ✭✭✭Chicken Run


    top ideas thanks everyone

    Just a quick update - vet let him come home today - copious quantities of laxatives and enemas "shifted" the problem...we have to dose him 5 times a day with more laxative liquid till he's cleared out and moving normally again, polytunnel is cat-proofed and he's on a curfew from 8pm-8am.


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    #7
    planetX
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,441 ✭✭✭planetX


    Did the vet say why he got like that? Surely the bones get digested eventually? I mean it's natural for him to be eating those things, and I don't think you can do anything to stop it. I'd love to know the reason your cat got sick, am worried now about mine.


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    #8
    Chicken Run
    Registered Users Posts: 594 ✭✭✭Chicken Run


    planetX wrote: »
    Did the vet say why he got like that? Surely the bones get digested eventually? I mean it's natural for him to be eating those things, and I don't think you can do anything to stop it. I'd love to know the reason your cat got sick, am worried now about mine.

    she didn't really give an explanation, sorry.
    He's still pretty young - less than a year old, so pretty enthusiastic hunter - he has free rein of outdoors day or night (well he did :D) and had sussed how to catch panicking birds in the polytunnel so my guess is he'd just stuffed himself silly with birds and mice rather than having them as part of a balanced diet.
    He's still on the laxatives - has to be kept in till we see evidence of "movement" in the litter tray.... It's gonna be epic when it comes *boke*
    Fed him some tuna in oil to see if that helps smooth things along too...


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